Blueline picking up slack for faltering Flyers offense

PHILADELPHIA -- The Flyers can't score with any consistency. Their power play is anemic. They are certainly dealing with a Stanley Cup run hangover of sorts.

If anything seems to be going right, however, it's their defense.

As expected, the Flyers have done a fine job of limiting oppositions' chances, having allowed only 13 even-strength goals (not counting empty-netters) through the first nine games.

Of course, that was expected to be their strength coming into the season. What no one foresaw was a horrible start for guys like Mike Richards, Jeff Carter and Nik Zherdev.

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As long as the defense continues to pull its weight, it should buy the Flyers the necessary time for the offense to correct itself.

"During the year you are going to have ups and downs," defenseman Sean O'Donnell said prior to the Flyers' 6-3 win over Buffalo Tuesday. "At the start of the year things are a lot more magnified. The reality is we're not scoring the kinds of goals we should be scoring. That's going to happen sometimes. The guys are working on that and trying to figure out what to do about it.

"For most good teams, when one thing is not working, something else is going to have to pick it up. Not only the six defensemen and the two goalies, but the forwards have helped out defensively in our end. ... Down low, we haven't given up much 5-on-5 and I don't think we will because we have the kind of personnel with the attention to defense that it should be tough to score on us."

They're doing it behind the pairing of Braydon Coburn and Kimmo Timonen. That continued Tuesday against the Sabres, who were allowed just one 5-on-5 goal.

"I think the defense has been good, and the additions have been good, too," coach Peter Laviolette said. "They've provided us an opportunity not to weigh the minutes down on others. (Andrej Meszaros) has been a good addition, O'Donnell has been a good addition. Having those guys back there provides good depth for our group.

"I think you always need good defense. Offense for me is about controlling the play and controlling the puck, and with that, you get opportunities at the net. If the opportunities aren't coming I think (defense) very important. If you're not playing good defensively, you're not going to win many games. Offensively, we want to attack with two men. We want to press the opposition."

With Chris Pronger still feeling his way back from late summer knee surgery, having the veteran pairing of Meszaros and O'Donnell has made a big difference for the Flyers.

"He's a very laid back guy and very easy to talk to," O'Donnell said of Meszaros. "It's a pretty solid last pairing because we've both been in situations where we've been higher up the chart and we're both happy to be in this kind of situation with this kind of team. There's a lot of depth. We're getting a lot of good, solid minutes. He's playing close to 20 minutes and I'm just a little less than that and we're OK with that. We have some pretty good defensemen ahead of us. All we can do is take care of our jobs on the ice and let everything else take care of itself on its own."

As for Pronger ... well, he's certainly not himself yet, but that's to be expected. It's not a snap of the fingers to come back from knee surgery.

"He has shown a lot of courage coming back in here," Laviolette said. "He had the surgery late in the summer and he didn't get a lot of opportunities to train or have training time. He missed training camp, and he's come in and given all he's got."

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The Flyers paid tribute to Barry Ashbee prior to the game Tuesday. Ashbee, a Flyers' defenseman and assistant coach in the 1970's, died of leukemia in May, 1977.

It was his death that lead to the creation of the Flyers' Wives Fight For Lives carnival each year. The team presented Ashbee's family with his retired number banner that hung in the Spectrum since it was determined the number would never be worn again in 1979.

"For me, you could use Bernie's number, you could use Billy's number, you could use my number," said Flyers' senior vice president Bob Clarke. "We've been honored so often and so much. I think it would be good if someone else wore those numbers. But I don't think Barry's ever should be worn again."

For a full transcript of what Clarke had to say about Ashbee, go to Anthony SanFilippo's blog, "In the Room" at delcotimes.com